Vivian Kung Haga has been named director of the Balboa Park Online Collaborative, an organization that has become a national model for bringing cultural institutions into the 21st century.

Founded in 2008 by the Legler Benbough Foundation with a $3 million, three year grant, in part supported by the collaborative’s 27 members, and until earlier this year directed by Rich Cherry, the organization is responsible for rewiring much of the park, setting up park-wide wireless Internet access, creating new websites, developing mobile apps, digitizing collections, and offering technical assistance.

Members and staff of the collaborative regularly contribute to the annual Museums and the Web national conference, which recently was held in San Diego.

“Vivian brings to the organization a breadth of experience in cultural institutions as an administrator, curator, and educator,” said Benbough Foundation president Peter Ellsworth in a statement. “Her experience in bringing diverse partners from universities, industry, and cultural institutions together to create innovative technology collaborations align with the mission and goals of BLOC.”

Ellsworth has charged Haga, formerly with the Museum of Photographic Arts and most recently the collaborative’s deputy director, with making the organization self-supporting and independent of the Benbough Foundation, which will continue funding it through 2014.

The collaborative has already formed a new board, which started meeting Oct. 1, and has submitted an application to the IRS to be an independent nonprofit organization. Haga said the process could take a couple weeks or as long as eight months, but she doesn’t expect the organization’s mission will change.